Comprehensive Research in a Complex Situation

The words "empowerment" and "participation" have become well known buzzwords in the development discourse in recent years. But what do they really mean? The present work looks into the two concepts of participation in development and child and youth participation, as well as analyzes structures of child and youth participation (CYP) on their empowerment potential on a theoretical and empirical level. Some might argue that child and youth participation is a goal in itself, therefore positive and always desirable. Although some concepts and their implementation of CYP seem to be more targeted towards empowerment than others, whether they lead to empowerment or not and to what extent needs to be analyzed on an individual level. It can be said, however, that the more there exist enabling structures and spaces that have the potential for people participating within them to see, understand and use the power network, the more potential for empowerment is present. This means on the otherhand that CYP can also have disempowering effects and cannot be a goal in itself, but its goals need to be set and measured on the individual level against qualitative criteria.